Indiestor Free
User Guide
Version 0.1.3
Contents
‘

Overview
3
System Requirements
3
Avid Compatibility
4
Limitations
4
Storage Location
4
Installation
5
Updating your software
6
Workstation Setup
7
Accessing the web GUI
8
User Management
9
Connecting to the Server
10
Avid Sharing
14
Watching, Incron & Resharing
17
Command Line Interface
19
Software Updates
19
Frequently Asked Questions
19
Support
20
License Information
20
2 Overview
‘

Indiestor-free is a simple, but powerful Linux storage utility for Avid project & media
sharing. The purpose of this guide is to walk you through the installation process, before
moving on to some basic administration tasks.
System Requirements
Please review the following requirements:
‘

● Operating System:
Ubuntu 14.04 LTS or Debian Wheezy*
● Network:
1G/10G Ethernet (Intel/Myricom cards work OTB)
● Storage:
Hardware RAID or preferably
ZFS on Linux
The indiestor system runs well on just about any modern system. However, our two main
dependencies (samba and netatalk) require at least a dual core pentium (1150 socket
preferably) and 8GB memory.
If you are planning to use ZFS on Linux please make double sure that you use
ECC
memory
. When using ZFS we suggest using an i3 or Xeon based processor.
* use the
AMD64
release (even for Intel chips!)
3 Avid Compatibility
Indiestor-free is tested for use with Avid Media Composer 7 (and newer). We actively test
on OS X 10.8+ and Windows 7. Please use the same release of Avid at every workstation.
Limitations
Indiestor-free places every user into the same Avid workspace. If you need the ability to
create multiple workspaces, please consider purchasing indiestor-pro. As a bonus,
indiestor-free provides an unprotected public share for exports, rushes, documents etc.
Storage Location
Indiestor-free users are automatically created in
/indiestor-free
. You might decide to
mount a storage array at this location, instead of using your OS drive.
‘

‘

4 Installation
Copy each command into a clean terminal on your server. In order to complete the
installation you will need
administrative privileges
.
‘

1)
Download and install the key for the indiestor-free repository. This allows you to verify
that our packages have not been tampered with:
wget q O http://free.indiestor.com/indiestorfree.key | sudo aptkey add 2)
Add the appropriate repository for your operating system:
Debian Wheezy:
echo "deb http://free.indiestor.com/apt/debian wheezy main" | sudo tee a /etc/apt/sources.list.d/indiestorfree.list Ubuntu Trusty (14.04 LTS):
echo "deb http://free.indiestor.com/apt/ubuntu trusty main" | sudo tee a /etc/apt/sources.list.d/indiestorfree.list 3)
Refresh the apt-get list. In simple terms this process refreshes the list of applications
available via the various repositories available to your server:
sudo aptget update 4)
Now install the indiestor-free package from our repository:
sudo aptget install indiestorfreegui The great thing about the apt package manager is that it will automatically fetch and
configure all dependencies. A dependency is a required component that another
program requires to do its job.
NB:
When prompted type ‘Y’ to let the indiestor-free installer configure your smb.conf!
5)
Indiestor-free only allows elected users to administer the storage. In short you must
add your admin user to the
indiewheel
group as follows:
sudo usermod a G indiewheel USERNAMETOADD 5 Workstation Setup
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In this section we will learn how to configure workstations for use with indiestor. Most
softwares will simply plug and play with NAS storage, but Avid has to be configured.
Enable Avid alldrives
Open an existing Avid project, click
Tools > console
. Once the console has loaded, type
alldrives
and hit enter. This task must be completed at every workstation and the setting
is remember after a system restart. If this option is not set, network media will appear
offline and network drives will be greyed out in import/media creation dialogues.
Windows OS Tweaks
For the best performance, Windows users are advised to
disable User Account Control
.
For a detailed Windows tuning guide, please see the PDF guide at:
http://indiestor.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/IndiestorWindowsTuningGuide.pdf
6 Mac OS Tweaks
Mac users must add their workstation to the
devices list
in the
Finder side-bar
. This
allows you to browse to network drives within Avid.
Mac users are also required to install the indiestor
Avid AFP tuner
, which is available at:
http://indiestor.com/avid-afp-tuner/
7 Accessing the web GUI
‘

Administrators can access the indiestor-free web management interface by pointing their
web browser at
http://
server-IP
:1001
8 User Management
Indiestor-free users are created by clicking the
+
icon on the web management tool strip.
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Passwords can be edited by selecting the user, then clicking on the edit icon. Similarly
users can be deleted by making a selection, then clicking on the trash icon. The PKILL
button can be used to kill all processes associated with a user(s).
WARNING:
Deleting a user completely removes his/her shared assets from the
system!
9 Connecting to the Server
In this section we will learn how to connect to indiestor from Windows and OS X.
‘

Connecting from Windows
1) Click on the windows network icon, then on the name of the indiestor server. When
prompted, authenticate as the desired user. A list of available workspaces will appear.
10 2) Right click
indiestor-free
and select
Map Network Drive
. This is a requirement if Avid
going to find your MXF media.
NB:
You don’t have to map the public share, but we usually do.
TIP:
users should agree a
common drive letter
for the indiestor-free drive.
11 Connecting from Mac
1) Click
connect to server
from the
Finder > go
menu. Enter
afp://
server-ip
/
and click
connect
Mac users must always connect via AFP
2) When prompted, authenticate as the desired user...
12 3) You will be presented with a list of available workspaces.
13 Avid Sharing
In this section we will learn how to share Avid projects and media using indiestor.
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What is indiestor style Avid sharing?
Indiestor is not designed to replicate Avid’s proprietary sharing environment. By
comparison to ISIS, indiestor operates an open approach, which is completely
transparent to the Avid application. Our method keeps each editors work protected,
while avoiding media database conflicts. Bins can be quickly shared/moved between
project nodes in a predictable and efficient manner.
Triggering Avid Shares
In order to trigger a share, an editor must be connected to the indiestor-free drive.
Avid project share’s are triggered by simply adding the extension
.avid
when creating a
new project on the network. Existing projects can be triggered by adding the
.avid
extension to the main project directory.
14 What's happening behind the scenes?
For each .avid trigger the indiestor watch engine responds by distributing a .copy project
for each user. Each .copy node is placed in a folder called
Avid Shared Projects.
This
prevents editors from breaking the distributed project structure.
Indiestor only watches the
top level
of the each avid workspace for triggers.
Sharing bins
Inside each node of a shared project you will find the
sharing tree
. The sharing tree is a
network of folders that allows bins to be offered
read-only
to other editors.
An
Unprotected
folder is provided for conveniently passing bins between editors. Our
approach is fundamentally more rigid than Avid’s real-time bin locking, but is still very
effective.
Media sharing
Media sharing is automatically enabled as soon as MXF media exists in
Avid MediaFiles
.
You do not have to do anything, everything is taken care of in the background.
15 Archiving
At the end of a project, the .avid owner may decide to unshare, which initiates the archive
project process.
For example, by renaming the project folder
myproject.avid
to
myproject
indiestor will
collapse all .copy projects into a folder called
archived-date
, as shown below:
16 Watching, Incron & Resharing
In this section we will discuss how indiestor receives file system notifications for sharing.
‘

Incron & Watches
Indiestor uses a combination of inotify and incron to detect file system events. This is a
very lightweight approach and allows the system to react in almost real-time.
To make sure indiestor is able to catch new events incron and watching must be enabled
in the
services
pane:
The status of these core services is also shown on the statbar:
17 The “Reshare” Function
Occasionally indiestor will miss a filesystem event. This might be because watching has
been temporarily disabled by the administrator.
For this reason we have provided a manual
reshare
function, which can be used to
forcibly fix the sharing structure.
To reshare, simply click the following button:
Click OK to confirm the action:
Advanced Architecture Notes
For advanced information on indiestor’s Avid architecture, please see:
http://indiestor.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/AvidArchitectureExtendedTechnicalNotes.pdf
18 Command Line Interface
‘

Indiestor includes a fully functional command line interface. The CLI runs behind the web
GUI and is handy for securely managing the server via SSH.
For a complete command list type:
indiestor-free --help
To view the CLI man page type:
man indiestor-free
Software Updates
Indiestor-free is a repository based release, which means that checking for software
updates is really simple. If you have a desktop environment, simply click on the software
update icon. If you are a command line user, please run:
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sudo aptget update sudo aptget install onlyupgrade indiestorfree sudo aptget install onlyupgrade indiestorfreegui Frequently Asked Questions
Due to changing nature of FAQs, our current list is maintained online at
http://indiestor.com/faqs/
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19 Support
Indiestor-free is a community supported software. Users are welcome to email directly
for support, but should also consider registering on our google group, so we can start
building a small community around this software.
‘

Please find the google group at:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/indiestor-free
License Information
Indiestor-free is distributed under the General Public License. As such
no warranty is
expressed or implied
. Indiestor limited cannot be held liable for loss of data/earnings.
We advise users to make appropriate arrangements for backup and failover.
‘

Please find the full details at:
http://indiestor.com/license/
20